| Design Criteria |
Design Solution |
Findings |
| Multiple
Recipients |
To
support list-based delivery, the system includes a database of recipient
addresses or can be connected to an existing database. To support
location-based delivery, the system supports geographical indexing
to allow recipients to be selected by location on a map. |
List-based
delivery was successful.
Location-based
delivery based on postal codes was successful.
A working
map interface was implemented but the project did not have access
to a GIS-encoded address database. The design of the Newsbug system
affords connection to geographic databases of telephone numbers (or
fax numbers or email addresses) to deliver messages to all residents
within a specified area. |
| Multiple
Channels |
The
system delivers messages via fax, website, email, voicemail, and SMS,
and can be extended to deliver automated messages to television, pre-recorded
messages to radio, automatic invocation of SEWS, or delivery of images,
such as fire or cyclone maps. |
The
system successfully delivered messages via fax, website, email, voicemail,
and SMS. |
| Multiple
Hazards |
The
Common Alerting Protocol has been designed to support a complete range
of emergency event. |
The
system successfully accommodated message sequences based on an actual
bushfire in the Boya region of WA and Tropical Cyclone Inigo, in the
Pilbara region. |
| Multiple
Stakeholder Groups |
The
system supports delivery of messages to specific groups of recipients,
which could be used to target specific stakeholder groups, such as
Emergency Managers. |
Different
types of stakeholders were involved in the trail and expressed support
for the proposed system. |
| disabled
people |
Delivery
of messages over multiple channels should help some groups of disabled
people to receive messages more expediently; for example, deaf people
may prefer SMS messages, blind people voicemail. |
Disabled
people were not specifically identified during the trial. |
| non-English
speaking residents |
The
system supports sending multiple versions of a message, which could
be used to deliver messages to non-English speakers. |
Non-English
messages were not created during the trial. |
| residents
of remote communities |
The
use of multiple message delivery channels means that the Newsbug system
can employ whatever infrastructure is available to deliver messages
to remote communities. Interactive television is an interesting possibility
in this respect, in that many remote communities, without residential
telephone or broadband service, do have televisions connected to satellite
by means of digital decoders capable of receiving messages from the
Newsbug system (Andrew Turk 2004). |
Capability
to send messages to targeted satellite television set top boxes was
established, but not implemented.
This aspect
is being further investigated as part of the ‘Digital Interactive
Remote Television’ project, funded by the Desert Knowledge CRC. |
| Multiple
Senders |
The
Newsbug system is implemented as a web service, which allows messages
to be sent from any computer connected to the internet. The Common
Alerting Protocol supports identification and verification of message
senders to facilitate message security, control, and coordination.
|
Messages
were successfully generated from multiple senders and locations, using
passwords and web-based interfaces. |
| Multiple
Platforms / Applications |
The
Newsbug system is implemented in Java as a web service to be computer
operating system independent.
The Common
Alerting Protocol is an XML schema, designed to provide interoperability
across systems and platforms. |
With
modest changes to the underlying code, the system was able to operate
with a 3rd-party CAP-based message composition interface. |
| Write-once
message input |
The
Newsbug system is a “write-it-once” system, automatically generating
all output from a single message input, thereby keeping operational
“overhead” effort to a minimum. The system uses a text-to-voice engine
to generate voicemail messages from text. The system also supports
recorded voice messages. |
Each
message in the trials was entered into the system once for formatting
and delivery to multiple channels. Synthetically generated Voicemail
messages received no negative comment. |
News 
